Magnus Merriman (37 page)

‘Pen-aysin,' said Peter.

‘What?' said Magnus.

‘Pen-ay-
sin
,' said Peter.

‘My God,' said Magnus, ‘he's talking Greek! I've sired a prodigy.'

He read other sentences and asked Peter to repeat the words, but Peter preferred the one he had learnt for himself, and stubbornly reiterated ‘Pen-ay-
sin
.'

‘All right,' said Magnus, ‘then we'll start at the beginning, as a rational education, which means a classical one, should be started. Now say this after me.'

He repeated the alphabet and Peter made many of the simpler sounds with reasonable accuracy.

‘That's magnificent,' said Magnus. ‘My dear fellow, you're going to be a scholar of the first magnitude. You have the intonation of a professor, the fine high forehead, the voracious appetite of a researcher—stop chewing it, confound you!—and I'm the man to direct your infant feet to the academic grove and the foothills of Parnassus. Now let's try the verbs, which are very difficult and extremely numerous. Indeed from the appearance of a Greek grammar you might imagine that Greek conversation consisted solely of verbs, and the Athenians were exclusively interested in moods and tenses. But that is not so. They weren't nearly so moody and tense as we are.—That's the kind of joke that will be useful to you when you're a professor, Peter.—And so we come to
λέγω
, which is a very good verb:
λέγω
, I say;
λέγειζ
, says you. Now then, Peter, after me:
λέγω
!'

‘Leggo,' said Peter.

‘
λέγειζ
.'

‘Leg-
ice
.'

‘
λέγει
.'

‘Leg – I'

‘Full marks,' said Magnus. ‘What Ben Jonson—who was a great man, Peter—once called his boy Benjamin, that I may certainly call you: “Magnus Merriman his best piece of poetry.” Peter, my lad, you're going to be a great man!'

Peter played with the grammar-book and Magnus lay back on his pillow and pondered the charming humour of the scene. But in a little while the joke became a serious thing, and presently he saw Peter as Professor of Greek at Oxford University, a scholar who should expound Aeschylus in the very tones of Aeschylus, a towering figure in the schools whose voice, loud and passionate in debate upon Mycenae rich in gold, would yet meander in grave loveliness about the Platonic dialogues, or leap in a riot of Aristophanic scorn upon his critics. To know, to be a scholar: what loftier aim had man? Yet why should Oxford be his goal? Would he not do better to live in his own country and by his virtue inspire new greatness in it? Here in the islands where Hakon had died, whose first earls were the elder issue of the family that fathered England's Norman conqueror, whose cathedral of St Magnus was built before Oxford was built, whose people were yet sturdy and shrewd and independent, here was the boy's domain, and with his gardening Orkney might flower most brightly. True, it was a small place, not rich, but what virtue was there in bigness? Athens in its prime was not large and Rome in its heyday was a little town. Iceland, the home of heroes, was but a fringe of people in a northern sea, and Gloriana's London a pair of villages at the ends of a bridge. Greatness was not measured by the mile, and the world might yet hear of Magnus Merriman's best piece of poetry though he never stirred from home.

Enchanted by this, the newest, the finest, and the most far-off of his ambitions, Magnus lay blissfully content.

In the back kitchen Rose was washing his dirty clothes, angry still, but deft and careful in her work. The cattle in the byre crunched their turnips and straw. Peerie Mansie
slept. Leaning against Magnus's knee, happy as his father, Peter sucked a red corner of the grammar-book. And the country that was to share his greatness lay dark and warm beneath the snow, and meditated nothing but the year's new grass.

Eric Linklater (1899–1974) was born in Wales and educated in Aberdeen. His family came from the Orkney Islands (his father was a master mariner), and the boy spent much of his childhood there.

Linklater served as a private in the Black Watch at the close of the First World War, surviving a nearly fatal head wound to return to Aberdeen to take a degree in English. A spell in Bombay with the
Times of India
was followed by some university teaching at Aberdeen again, and then a Commonwealth Fellowship which allowed him to travel in America from 1928 to 1930.

Linklater's memories of Orkney and student life informed his first novel,
White Maa's Saga
(1929), while the success of Poet's Pub in the same year led him to take up writing as a full- time career. A hilarious satirical novel,
Juan in America
(1931), followed his American trip, while the equally irreverent
Magnus Merriman
(1934) was based on his experiences as Nationalist candidate for a by-election in East Fife.

Linklater joined the army again in the Second War War, to serve in fortress Orkney, and later as a War Office correspondent reporting the Italian campaign, going on to write the official history. The compassionate comedy of
Private
Angelo
(1946) was drawn from this Italian experience.

With these and many other books, stories and plays to his name, Linklater enjoyed a long and popular career as a writer. His early creative years were described in
The Man on my
Back
(1941), while a fuller autobiography,
Fanfare for a Tin
Hat
, appeared in 1970. Eric Linklater